Prediction of Long-term Motor Function Based on integrity of corticospinal tract in Ischemic Stroke after Intra-arterial Thrombectomy

Motivation: Intra-arterial thrombectomy (IAT) effectively removes the thrombus to restore cerebral blood flow. However, even if the thrombus is removed, the prior hypoxia may still lead to brain damage, resulting in motor deficits. Goal(s): Poststroke motor function is highly associated with the integrity of white matter. We anticipated that early microstructural integrity may predict long-term motor function after IAT. Approach: DTI and FMA were used to predict the motor function. Results: The regression models show that adding FA, AD, RD, and ADC of CST as predictors could improve performance to an R2>0.705 and R2>0.566 (p<0.001) for predicting FMA-UE and -LE, respectively. Impact: Early white matter integrity after IAT treatment can predict long-term motor function in ischemic stroke patients.